Big changes don\’t usually happen overnight. There are usually a few quiet moves first — little tweaks and adjustments that no one really notices.
And then suddenly, one more little change makes a huge difference, pushes it over the tipping point and forces everyone to pay attention.
Twitter is probably the best example of that process. Biz Stone and his friends didn\’t create social media. Nor did they create short messaging. They just had the idea to combine the two by making SMS messaging public.
There was no big concept there and they had no idea themselves whether anyone would want to use it. They\’d just made a small change to the way that people send and read text messages so that everyone could keep in touch better. Once people realized just what Twitter could do, the effect was enormous.
The same is true of many other successful companies. Google didn\’t invent Internet searching. It didn\’t even invent the idea of measuring the importance of sites according to the pages that link to them — that\’s very similar to the way academics rank each other by the number of citations they receive. They just did it on the Internet and implemented it in a way that delivered better results than anyone else.
And Windows has never offered much that\’s new. Microsoft based its operating system on the work that Apple had already completed. They just did it well enough and put it in enough places to make the difference.
As entrepreneurs, we\’re always looking for the next big idea. We want to change the world, create a revolution… and make a giant sack of cash in the process.
But sometimes, the fastest route to riches isn\’t to take a giant leap. It\’s just to change the direction of what\’s available now.
When you\’re searching for a money-making concept then, take a look at what other people in your field are doing. Look at the tools that people are using and the products they\’re buying, and ask yourself how you can improve them.
It might not look like a revolutionary concept but the results can change your life.